The Ghost of ’85

In 1985, at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, Neil Kinnock stood up and launched an attack on Liverpool City Council. This was the council who had stood up and defied Thatcher and Tory cuts, with the consistent backing of local people. Kinnock’s words and deeds will be remembered amongst the worst betrayals in British Labour history.

How fitting then to parody his words and reflect on what my local council has done recently. Just over a month ago it announced £91 million pounds of ‘savings’ were to be made. In real terms this means 2000 jobs and massive cuts to services. To them, I dedicate the following:

I’ll tell you what happens with broken promises. You start with passive obedience. This is then pickled into complacency, and a sense of entitlement, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the ridiculous spectacle of Labour councillors – Labour councillors – protesting outside their own meeting before they then go in and slash public services